Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

When it comes to "Mission: Impossible," viewers have certain die-hard expectations.

One: We must hear a few bars of Lalo Schifrin's iconic theme. Two: The IMF team must receive orders that self-destruct in five seconds - no longer, no less. Three: Someone, I don't care whom, must peel off a stunningly lifelike latex mask from the chin up. And four: At some point in the proceedings, the audience must be totally and hopelessly confused.

"Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" succeeds on most counts in this fourth, gleeful effort in the franchise. It presses all the right buttons at all the right moments and never forgets its reason for being: to shove Tom Cruise - who once again plays Impossible Mission Force's Ethan Hunt - into a goofy Russian general's costume.

These movies have always been showcases for Cruise's stardom and his ability to outrun special effects, but a curious thing happens with "Ghost Protocol": It isn't about him or his shirtless vanity shots. It's all about the chase - an enjoyably loopy race against time as an evil "nuclear extremist" (Michael Nyqvist) schemes to launch Russian missiles against the United States, thus sparking global apocalypse and cleansing the Earth of rot.

His first big move is to bomb the crap out of the Kremlin and then pitch blame on the IMF. On the case - but off the books as "ghosts" - are Ethan and company, who now include Benji (Simon Pegg), Jane (Paula Patton) and Brandt (Jeremy Renner).

"Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" was directed by Brad Bird ("The Incredibles"), whose first stab at a live-action feature preserves the buzzy exhilaration and carefree absurdity of a cartoon.

The place where "Ghost Protocol" gets truly confusing is back inside the building, where our IMF heroes are pulling off a multilayered bit of "I Spy" trickery that seems about 19 times more complicated than "Inception." But that's OK. It's all an excuse for things to go horribly wrong.

If you widen your eyes and turn off your brain, it all adds up to cracking good fun. The Imax incarnation blows up the eye candy - the panoramic sweeps of Budapest, then Moscow, then Dubai - and the volume, which you'll feel in your teeth. I actually think the vibrations may have dislodged a filling.